PDF of original Kenosha News article - 08/26/07

Back on the Kenosha stage
Actor, Kenosha native Travanti returns in Meals on Wheels benefit
BY BILL ROBBINS brobbins@kenoshanews.com

    He has appeared on stages from coast to coast — and abroad as well — to rave reviews playing characters as diverse as a jaded French aristocrat to a crusty Jewish playwright.
    He won two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe for his brilliant acting in “Hill Street Blues,” a groundbreaking TV series viewed by millions.
    He has hosted “Saturday Night Live” and guest-starred in dozens of TV series including “Kojak,” “Knot’s Landing” and “Mission: Impossible.”
    And now, Daniel J. Travanti is taking the stage in Kenosha for the fi rst time since graduating from high school here in 1958.
    After nearly four decades, this is his theatrical homecoming.
    A Kenosha native, Travanti will perform in A.R. Gurney’s “Love Letters” on Sept. 8 at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside as a benefit for the local Meals on Wheels program, for which he has volunteered since 2004. UW-Parkside’s theater department will receive 10 percent of the proceeds.
    “Some people from Kenosha have traveled to see me in theater performances,” said Travanti, who starred as Capt. Frank Furillo in the critically acclaimed “Hill Street Blues.”
    “But the last time I appeared on a Kenosha stage was in the auditorium at Bradford High School (now Reuther),” he said. “That’s when I won the state speech contest in dramatic declamation and
original oratory.” Travanti and fellow actor Susan Sweeney are donating their talents to “Love Letters,” a poignant and romantic tale about two people who correspond throughout their lives.
    It’s Travanti’s first professional acting stint in his hometown, though he visits his family and friends here often.
    “After all my traveling and all these years, this is my first professional stage appearance in Kenosha ever,” Travanti said in a telephone interview from his home in Lake Forest, Ill. “I hope we get a bunch of people. I always have visions of an empty theater. How come I think nobody is going to be there? All actors have certain insecurities.”
    Travanti had no problem packing a New York City theater recently during a run of an off-Broadway production titled “The Last Word...”
    In that two-character comedy he played an elderly and cantankerous Jewish playwright named Henry Grunwald — and was showered with glowing reviews in publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly, Newsday and many others.
    “Who says an Italian-American from Kenosha can’t play a Viennese Jew in New York,” Travanti said with a laugh, adding that his many close friendships with Jewish actors including Ed Asner helped him breathe life into the character.
    “I’m sort of an honorary Jew,” Travanti said.
    “The Last Word...” was Travanti’s New York City stage debut.
    “It was particularly gratifying because I was pretty sure if I got to do that in New York and I got to do my best I’d get good notices,” Travanti said.
    Indeed. Here is what the Wall Street Journal’s Terry Teachout said about Travanti in the Grunwald role: “Mr. Travanti plays Grunwald with lip-smacking relish — you can see how much fun he’s having — and no sooner did I get over the shock of seeing Capt. Frank Furillo concealed behind a gray beard and an inch-thick Sachertorte accent than I settled down to enjoy a superior piece of acting. This is, amazingly enough, Mr. Travanti’s New York stage debut. I don’t know what took him so long to get here, but I sure hope he sticks around.”
    Ironically, Teachout is one of Travanti’s favorite writers. Travanti had recently read Teachout’s biography of 20th century American newspaperman H.L. Mencken.
    “This is the kind of stuff you fantasize about as an actor,” Travanti said. “The Wall Street Journal says they’re so glad I’m here. After I finished reading Terry Teachout’s book I wanted to write him a fan letter. As it turns out, he kind of wrote me one.”
    A physical fitness enthusiast who observes a rigidly healthy diet and says he’s in the best shape of his life, Travanti is treadmill-walking on air these days.
    “I’m 67 years old and I feel like a kid,” he enthused. “I hit a home run in New York. That’s pretty good, especially for an old guy.”
    Travanti and Sweeney, a theater professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, won’t rehearse for their roles in “Love Letters.”
    “The playwright’s stipulation is not to rehearse this piece because he wants spontaneity,” Travanti said. “We’ll have one readthrough, and that’s it.”
    He has performed the play twice before in benefits for other groups.
    “It’s effective as a charity production,” Travanti said. “It’s a conversation between two people in letters they’ve written to each other over a period of 35 to 40 years. It’s charming. It has a great deal of sentiment, humor and a little suspense. It ought to make you laugh and cry if I’m doing my job correctly.”
    Gary Brown, executive director of Kenosha Area Family and Aging Services, of which Meals on Wheels is a part, praised Travanti for his hometown loyalty.
    “He started volunteering for us in 2004,” Brown said. “He’s the honorary chairperson of our charity walks.”
    Travanti has led seven city and county walks for the organization, helping to raise $50,000. The theater benefit is an outgrowth of his continued support of the Meals on Wheels program.
    Said Brown: “We talked about it in April, after he got back from his New York stage appearance. It’s gratifying to see somebody like Dan — who has had great success in his life and traveled all over the world — stay involved in his hometown community. He wants to give back to the place where he grew up.”
    Travanti hasn’t starred in a TV series since 1993, when he played a detective on the short-lived show “Missing Persons.” Instead, he has opted chiefly to pursue his theatrical career.
    But he’s ready to get back in front of the camera.
    “I’m ready to go back to TV, possibly another series,” he said.
    “People (in Hollywood) are not waiting with bated breath,” he added. “After one or two years you fade away. But gradually they realize they have something useful in their midst. I might go back to TV after this event in Kenosha. I’ll go wherever my agent sends me.”
    But he’ll always go home.